Artifice

Artist’s Statement

Life presents a child with a choice on Saturday mornings—cartoons or cooking shows? I always opted for the second. Though my passion for food didn’t turn into a career, it is still an indispensable part of my life. When my love for ceramics began, so too was born a dream of marrying it with the culinary arts. I had a vision of customizing dinnerware for chefs. Growing up in Salt Lake (which was never on the map for its choice in food) the dream seemed vaguely ludicrous. Would there ever be a chef in this area who would invest in custom hand-made dinnerware? With the Olympics, a strong economy, and a growing population, farm-to-table restaurants such as Forage began to advance the idea of fine-dining. My first collaboration with a local restaurant began with Bowman Brown at Forage years ago, and has since expanded to include a handful of the finest restaurants in the Salt Lake and Park City areas.

My main focus as a ceramic artist when it comes to dinnerware is to create a canvas for the chef. A custom plate says something that plain white factory-made dinnerware simply doesn’t—it says the chef cares about the food enough to customize how it is presented. Furthermore, the texture of each piece, which I also customize, rounds out the experience in that the silverware will interact with the clay or glaze by giving off a sound different from standard industrial ceramics. Even the feel of the piece as a fork or spoon runs across it, will be unique and create something most diners haven’t experienced yet. Dining at a high level should be an extra-sensory experience—it should include, sound, taste, touch, sight, and smell. My work becomes a small part of a unique experience in fine-dining.

With media attention, both local and national, and a growing number of clients, both public and private, there has also grown a necessity to meet demands beyond what I can do with my own two hands. An inherent dream since I began ceramics has also been that of becoming a ceramic designer. In collaboration with a local manufacturer, I will release my first set of designer dinnerware in early 2016. The release comes in conjunction with a feature in the March 2016 issue of Food and Wine Magazine. “The Designer Series,” as I will call it, will make my work available to more people, and allow me to maintain an affordable price for clients. Furthermore, it will allow me time to continue to do custom work.

https://cmceramicart.com/aboutGW.php

Camille Washington is the co-director of Good Company Theatre, and the Marketing and Box Office Manager for Onstage Ogden. Good Company Theatre is the only black-owned and administrated theatre in Utah. Before her current posts, she was Curatorial Fellow for Diversity in the Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and also held positions at Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, and New Langton Arts (San Francisco). Her play, Oda Might, will have its world premiere at Plan-B Theatre Company in November 2019. She received her BA in Art History from the University of Utah (2006), and her MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute (2009).

Brandon Ray Olive, storyteller, originally hails from Shreveport, Louisiana. He credits his journey to his child-like curiosity, to his family's loving influence, and his passionate belief in the human potential. All of which has contributed to building his life in accordance...

Brandon Ray Olive (now a loving husband to 1 and proud father to 3) is a prolific TV/Film actor, with recent appearances in Steven Soderbergh's "Logan Lucky", HBO's "Mosaic", and a slate of upcoming projects releasing in 2019-2020.

In addition to acting, Brandon has directed and produced projects for Comedy Central & Warner Bros and is deeply involved in the nurturing and mentoring of other creatives/storytellers/actors. He currently resides near Park City, UT., where he continues to explore, hone his craft, and live life (and all of its questions) with his beautiful wife and mischievously amazing children.

Olivia Custodio has her BFA in Vocal Performance from Carnegie Mellon University and her Masters in Music from the University of Utah. As a performer, she has appeared in numerous operas, musicals, and plays, and studied improv comedy at The Second City in Chicago. She has begun to dabble in the world of being a playwright and her first short play, Driver’s License, Please, premiered at Plan-B Theatre Company in the spring of 2019. Olivia currently serves as the Director of Individual Giving at Utah Symphony | Utah Opera and also served as the Director of Development at Salt Lake Acting Company.

Raised outside of Dallas, Jed was raised on music, singing in the church choir and taking mandatory piano lessons until his mom let him quit. To her surprise, he continued to play piano but replaced classical pieces with classics such as Queen, the Beatles, Billy Joel, etc. After graduating from BYU with a degree in Commercial Music, Jed worked at a number of studios in Utah and spent time in New York City working at Electric Lady Studios. Jed is now on staff as an audio engineer at June Audio Recording Studios, works as a music producer for bands and artists, and gigs as a keyboard player. When not in the studio, you can find Jed enjoying his hobbies of rock climbing or riding his motorcycle.

Jen Palmer is a commercial photographer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She specializes in fashion, beauty, and product photography. Her favorite part of being a photographer is creating images that never existed before that moment and working with creative teams. When she’s not taking pictures, Jen loves to spend time with her family, friends, and especially her dog, Bucky. She also loves to travel and see all the places she’s read about.

Johnny Worthen is an award-winning, best-selling author of books and stories. A Utah Writer of the Year. Trained in modern literary criticism and cultural studies, he writes upmarket multi-genre fiction, symbolized by his love of tie-dye and good words. “I write what I like to read,” he says. “This guarantees me at least one fan.”

Johnny is best known (so far) for his award winning, nationally acclaimed, best-selling young adult novel, ELEANOR, THE UNSEEN. It is a great book and if you haven’t read it, you need to. Johnny’s debut novel, the adult occult thriller, BEATRYSEL along with its companion story DR. STUART’S HEART explores the darker sides of love and Magick.

CELESTE, THE UNSEEN BOOK 2, continues Eleanor’s story as she tries to maintain a life in Jamesford, while distant events and local suspicion conspire to threaten everything. DAVID, THE UNSEEN BOOK 3, sees the powerful transformative conclusion of this awarding series as Eleanor learns her past and builds her future.

Johnny’s entry into mystery with THE BRAND DEMAND won a Silver Quill Award from the League of Utah Writers in the best novel category, while, his genre-bending comedy noire, THE FINGER TRAP, introduces Tony Flaner, a flawed slacker every-man detective who can’t throw a punch but can slay a room with sarcasm.

Johnny's short stories appear in a number of anthologies including the Dark Fiction LITTLE VISIBLE DELIGHT (The Point), Utah Horror, OLD SCRATCH AND OWL HOOTS (Keep Sweet), IT CAME FROM THE GREAT SALT LAKE (May 15th), Utah Fantasy, SECRETS & DOORS (A Thousand Secret Doors), HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT (The Lost Curse of the Witch's Nest) and the limited edition commemorate Salt Lake Comic Con anthology HEROIC: TALES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY (The Grape Whisperer).

Johnny lectures and teaches about writing and life whenever anyone will listen. He edits professionally for Omnium Gatherum, a dark fiction press. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with his wife, sons and a cat.

Sarah Keele is the illustrator behind all of the Dark City Series board games by Façade Games. They launched their first Kickstarter, a social deception party game in a faux book box called, Salem 1692, back in April of 2015, just in time for Sarah’s graduation from Brigham Young University with a BFA in illustration. Riding the wave of the boom in the tabletop gaming industry, they exceeded their humble goal of $6k reaching an incredible $100k in funds to kickstart their game. Their second game, Tortuga 1667, solidified the success they were having when they reached $400k, and thus Façade Games as an official game publishing company was born. Sarah’s post graduate career as an board game illustrator also officially began. With 3 successful board games (the latest, Deadwood 1876, garnering over half a million dollars in its KS campaign) now behind her, she continues to draw and paint with fervor always keeping an eye for the next great opportunity. Her work has also been included in a well known children’s magazine called, The Friend, and various book covers with authors like A. Lee Martinez among them. Her latest book cover is for author, Cami Murdock Jensen, titled, First Earth: The Arch Mage series. It will be released before the end of 2019. When she’s not doing client work, she’s making custom portraits through her Etsy shop, working on her comic, spending time with her husband and two daughters in their Orem, UT home, and collecting coins.

You can find her at . . .

Instagram: @sarahkeeleart

Facebook: @sarahmartbyu

Pinterest: @sarahkeeleart

Etsy: etsy.com/shop/KeeleKreation

Joseph Facer is a multi-instrumentalist, audio engineer, and producer from Provo, Utah. He developed a love for music early in life and has pursued his passion single-mindedly ever since. Joseph has toured internationally as well as across the United States with various groups and has performed with and recorded such artists as Gladys Knight, Toto, Lea Salonga, Leslie Odom Jr., Lexi Walker, and many more. Joseph also performs with his original progressive hard rock band Solyphony, who just released their first single, “The Dawning.”

As a young girl, Aubrey loved being in the kitchen. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle), she would go crabbing during the summers. These experiences instilled an appreciation and love of fresh seafood. She learned the art of catching, cleaning and cooking - sea-to-table was very real.

Driven by passion, Aubrey graduated from the Culinary Arts Institute at UVU. Here she cultivated her skills and developed an excitement for Italian cuisine. This excitement took her to Italy where she studied & learned the art of homemade pasta, pizza and sauces.​

Since her days in Italy, Aubrey has used her skills and passion to feed the masses through private catering, cooking classes and taking care of her family.

Aubrey's clientele includes:

- James Harden (Houston Rockets)

- Kevin Durant (Golden State Warriors)

- C-Suite Executives at: Vivint Smart Home, Clear Link, Low VA Rates, Overstock, Nuskin, Skull Candy, DOMO, Traeger grills

- Award-winning doctors

- Music Producers

- Local City Officials

- Legislators

- Jeremy Guthrie (2015 MLB WS pitcher)​

Aubrey is very passionate about health, fitness and and a nutrient dense diet. She strives to educate her children and peers on the importance of taking care of their bodies through food and exercise. That said, she can't resist a perfectly layered, buttery croissant or homemade pasta. She lives by the rule of all things in moderation.

Traveling and exploring cultures through food is an on going life pursuit. Marco and Aubrey share this love together and plan to share their experiences on amniccoli.com